Film industry up in arms against Service Tax on Copyright
NEW DELHI: A core committee comprising senior members of the film industry, along with Members of Parliament, will me
MUMBAI: Indian Merchants? Chamber (IMC) is organising a day-long conference, ?Fusion 2012?, on 1 February in Mumbai.
Fusion brings sports, media and entertainment industry on a single dais to enable the participants to interact with industry biggies and celebrities sharing ideas the theme ?C3i: Content ? Creation to Consumption & Audience Involvement?.
IMC president Bhavna Doshi said, ?The content industry is growing exponentially, reaching out to a multitude of consumers - across multiple platforms - in new and scalable formats with new and innovative monetisation strategies and programmes. With new generation of eReaders, tablets and smart phones enabling the consumers to be free and paid, relationships are making for an expanded universe of content creation and consumption.?
The conference will look at new trends and technologies that are transforming and redefining relationships that combine these three sectors and the consumer. Apart from many contemporary trends which will be explored during the conference, it will also deliberate on ethics in journalism and advertising.
The Conference, hosted and moderated by Kabir Bedi, will be inaugurated by Union Minister of Youth Affairs and Sports Ajay Maken and will have the industry leaders from the fields of media, entertainment, advertisement, film and TV, animation and content production, telecom and sports marketing as speakers and participants.
The speakers at the conference include Sunil Lulla (MD & CEO, Times TV Network); Bhaskar Das (ED, BCCL-TOI); Subhash Ghai (film director); Santosh Desai (CEO, Future Brands), Srikant Sastri (Country Chair, Vivaki & Publicis Groupe), Geet Sethi (Billiards champion), Alok Malik (MD, ESPN), Shobhaa De (Author, Columnist, Novelist) and Arnab Goswami (ED, Times Television).
MUMBAI: Fitch Ratings‘ 2012 outlook for the US media and entertainment sector is stable, driven by modest growth in ad spending amid elevated macroeconomic risk, and bolstered by a banner year for political advertising. Media conglomerates‘ diversity and exposure to cable networks will provide stability and cash flow.
High margins and low capital requirements should continue to drive robust free cash flow (FCF). This provides significant cushion to withstand potential economic pressures, and cash generation is expected to be positive even in the event of a materially weaker operating environment.
Media credits are currently well positioned within their ratings categories, and face minimal to modest near-term maturities. Share repurchases and potential small M&A activity are likely to exceed or at least equal cash generation. To the extent that leverage remains within Fitch‘s targets, a moderate amount of debt-funded activity is incorporated into ratings.
While Fitch is not currently forecasting a double-dip recession, Fitch believes that ad spending in 2012 could decline substantially more than GDP. Margins would contract materially given high fixed costs; however, FCF should remain positive. Credits more at risk in this scenario include those that face higher advertising exposure, are faced with significant secular challenges, or are positioned lower in their rating categories. Additional negative ratings actions could result if cash returns to shareholders remain aggressive in such an environment.
Fitch also expects over-the-top (OTT) technologies will remain largely incremental and not drive widespread cord-cutting in 2012. Tablet adoption will further disrupt traditional book, magazine, and newspaper publishers, but over the medium term, it should strengthen their overall profitability. Video content on tablets is expected to remain largely incremental and benefit content providers and aggregators. The ability to aggregate large audiences will keep traditional media players relevant.
NEW DELHI: There has been no direct recruitment in the Group ?A? cadres since Prasar Bharati was set up as an autonomous corporation in 1997. The Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) refused to hold Departmental Promotion Committee (DPC) meetings between 1997 and 2002 as the pubcaster was an autonomous body.
A large number of pending court cases compounded the problem, apart from the fact that service rules did not exist for many of the posts.
A total of 3452 posts, including operation and maintenance staff, have been identified as essential posts for filling up on priority basis and the Group of Ministers has approved a proposal for filling these posts in consultation with the Finance Ministry.
Also, even 40 years after the service was established, no permanent staffer has been recruited in the senior administrative grade of the Indian Broadcasting (Programme) Service set up specifically for All India Radio and Doordarshan.
Information and Broadcasting Ministry sources admitted to indiantelevision.com that of the sanctioned strength of 642 in the IB(P)S, only 500 had been filled apart from 94 officers taken on ad-hoc basis in the junior time cale.
The sanctioned strengthened in the other posts is: 97 in the Junior Administrative Grade of which four have been filled, and 265 in the Senior Time Scale of which 231 are vacant.
The IB(P)S had been conceived by then Information and Broadcasting Minister V N Gadgil especially to have trained manpower in AIR and DD and reduce dependence on the Indian Information Service which continues to dominate the manpower in Prasar Bharati.
The situation is even worse in the News Services Division of AIR, which has a total regular manpower of 26 against a sanctioned strength of 104.
Among Group ?A? services in All India Radio, there has been no recruitment in the post of Announcer Grade I which has a sanction of 20 posts, none in Music composer Grade I which has a sanction for two posts, none of news reader-cum-translator Grade I which has a sanction for 20 posts, none for Deputy Director (Audience Research) against the sanction of six posts, none for Translator-cum-announcer in Indian Languages or Foreign Language in Grade I which have sanction for one and seven posts respectively.
There are 32 vacancies against 72 sanctioned posts for instrumentalist Grade I, one Director and one Joint Director (Audience Research) against two posts in each category, 42 Audience Research Officers against 54 sanctioned posts, and one Supervisor against 15 sanctioned posts.
In addition to the normal functioning of Prasar Bharati, there is a total requirement of 8018 personnel for the newly sanctioned projects in the pubcaster. The total number of persons required for Operation and Maintenance of the new posts is 2183 for AIR and 5,835 for DD.
MUMBAI: Zee Trendz is all set to unveil the latest season of The Bold and the Beautiful premiering on 16 January at 9 pm.
The Bold and the Beautiful is an American television soap opera created by William J Bell and Lee Phillip Bell.
Set in Los Angeles, California, the show centers upon the Forrester family and their fashion house business Forrester Creations. The program features an ensemble cast, headed by its longest-serving actors Susan Flannery as Stephanie Forrester, John McCook as Eric Forrester, Katherine Kelly Lang as Brooke Logan, Ronn Moss as Ridge Forrester.
The Bold and the Beautiful is also a sister show to the Bells? other soap opera The Young and the Restless, as several characters from each of the two shows have crossed over to the other since the early 1990s, and its title derived from Y&R.
The Bold and the Beautiful has won 31 Daytime Emmy Awards, including one for Outstanding Drama Series in 2009 and again in 2010, as well as in 2011. On 7 September, 2011, the series switched to high definition.
switch
switch